


Kneel to the Baboon King

by c2t2



Series: Out of Rukongai [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Gen, Man vs nature, Renji's mind is literally trying to kill him, Sequel, brief mentions of RukiRen, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c2t2/pseuds/c2t2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renji battles the elements and his zanpakuto, but his greatest enemy is himself.<br/>Sequel to “Curse of the Zanpakuto”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Junko for cheerleading, and just generally being awesome!

Renji was the first student out the door after the final lecture.

His classmates tittered that the mad dog was finally off his leash for the summer, but Renji was too far gone to hear them.

He barely made it to the edge of the grounds before he was forced to stop. There he doubled over, trembling arms braced against a tree, and lost this morning’s breakfast.

He was heaving his guts out. Renji was seeing spots as his vision faded.

He had lost Rukia, and Renji learned that he had personally killed a house full of orphans.

Another hot wave of nausea took away his ability to think, and sweat broke out on Renji’s forehead and back. When his reason returned, his thoughts were no more optimistic than before.

Darkness clawed at the edges of his mind.

“ _You_ ,” he spat.

And the deep, rumbling voice inside him answered.

-.-.-

Renji’s feet were yanked out from under him, and he fell through the ground.

His body plummeted through an alien sky. Damp, putrid air rushed with thundering force around his body as the unfamiliar landscape below zoomed towards him. As he reached the trees, Renji braced his arms in front of his face in a futile attempt to protect himself. All the air was immediately knocked from his body as a thick branch slammed into his ribs. He tumbled toward the ground, strong branches bruising him and slender branches leaving stinging slaps. He had barely slowed when he hit the muck below.

Renji plunged through a foot of stagnant water and sank deeply into the foul muck below. The ooze trapped him, filling his clothes and crawling into all the crevices of his body. The more he struggled, the more trapped he felt. As the slime oozed between his toes and crawled up his nose, Renji began to panic, and with a final frantic thrashing, he somehow pulled himself to the surface, gasping desperately for air, alternately wheezing and gagging on the stink of the slime that covered him.

Once the panic subsided and he could breathe normally - as normally as he could with a cracked rib - Renji tried to take stock of his surroundings. Beneath the trees, the swamp around him was so gloomy that the light barely penetrated the very air, leaving everything a hazy sickly green. He could see clearly for several paces; then everything faded and darkened until the shadowy shapes of looming trees blocked his view. The air was thick, hot, and completely still. Not a breath of movement anywhere.

And the place stank.

The air was a nauseating combination of stagnant water and rotting things. It smelled like the places the pipes from Seireitei dumped their sewage into the Rukongai rivers. The taste of the slime in Renji’s mouth was so vile that he thought he would never be rid of it. He scraped his nails across his skin, trying to remove the bulk of the absurdly heavy muck that was weighing him down. He stumbled a few steps forward, only now realizing that he had been slowly sinking into the water, the surface felt like it was crawling up his thighs. The awful stuff stuck to his ragged clothing and sucked determinedly at his bare feet, trying to cement him in one place. Renji grabbed a low-hanging branch on one of the trees and hoisted himself above the stinking water before the stuff could pull him back down again. The effort made his cracked rib scream in pain, and the flaky red bark was sharp and stained his hands and feet, but it was still a vast improvement over the slime below.

Renji balanced on the branch and looked around. Now that his heart had stopped pounding quite so loud, Renji could hear again. The swamp was nearly silent, but now that his breath had slowed, on the very edge of his senses, he could hear a faint roar in the distance. It was not the birdcall that had haunted him in Inuzuri, but the sound was unnerving in the same way, and Renji wanted to get away from this place as soon as possible. He slapped a mosquito that landed on his neck and pulled himself to his feet, balancing on the branch, one hand stabilizing against the trunk, the other cradling his aching ribs.

First, there was something he needed to do.

“All right,” Renji snarled, his voice quiet and vicious. “Get out here and face me, you filthy ape.”

Across from him, a pale figure stepped out from behind a tree far too slender to hide its bulk. The creature balanced effortlessly in the dark snarl of branches, its glowing yellow eyes turned their full force directly on Renji.

“Renji,” the baboon rumbled in a familiar voice. It was one of the two voices that had been plaguing him for nearly a year. “It is hypocrisy for you to complain of filth.”

“Foolish child,” hissed the other, also familiar voice, and Renji saw a white snake slithering up the baboon’s back to hover over its shoulder.

The baboon was mostly white, save for graceful dark stripes winding down the ape’s powerfully muscled shoulders and arms. Somehow, the snake was the baboon’s tail. They were the same thing, one being.

While the creature had no visible effect on the environment - no stirring in the air or ripple in the stagnant water below - somehow, it radiated power like nothing Renji had ever encountered.

Renji absentmindedly shook off a trail of ants crawling up his calf.

“Murderer,” he whispered the accusation, trusting the thing to hear it. “Monster. Child-killer. Trash.”

The snake hissed a terrible laugh, and the baboon rumbled, “We are part of you, Renji. You insult only yourself.”

“I would never have killed my brothers. I would have rather died.” Renji spat. He waved away a cloud of gnats that had sprung up around him.

“Your nature will manifest, whether you call on it or not.”

 “My nature is disease? Murder?” Renji was becoming furious, on the edge of shouting. He had to raise his voice above the terrible buzzing hum, which had grown steadily louder.

“Your nature, Renji, is to reach for power when misfortune approaches.”

 “THERE WAS NO MISFORTUNE UNTIL YOU SHOWED UP.” Renji shook his head for emphasis, hoping his loose hair would dislodge the biting flies attempting to land on him. The bone-rattling hum was growing until he could feel it in his teeth.

“There would have been. That is certain. Likely, the Inuzuri plague dissuaded a worse calamity.”

“YOU KILLED THE CHILDREN!”

“Learn to control your power, and next time you will be able to help instead.”

“IT WAS _YOU_!”

“No, Renji. It was _us_.”

“I would rather die than work with the monster who murdered my family!” Renji had to shout now, to be heard over the deafening buzz.

“Then stay here, boy, and let the insects have their way.”

At this, Renji looked around.

While he had been distracted, the air, the water, the trees, everything had become packed and crawling with insects. Swarms of flies, mosquitoes, and smaller biting things swarmed through the air in dark clouds. Beetles of all sizes and colors swarmed over the tree, hiding the red bark from view. Ants swarmed up his bare feet and over his hand and up his wrist, biting as they went. Glittering black specks, too small for Renji to distinguish, covered the stinking ooze below him so thickly that the water had become an undulating black mass.

Renji yelped in shock and jumped to try and shake off the things crawling up his limbs and biting his exposed skin. He choked and coughed, gagging as he felt gnats fly down his throat with every breath. Renji lost his balance and fell again into the filthy water below, feeling a tickling itch as he crushed the blanket of insects on the water’s surface before plunging through into the muck. This time, Renji was not so deeply buried that he lost his bearings, and sprang back to his feet in moments, again clutching his side as pain shot through his body from the cracked rib. He covered his nose and mouth with the edge of his shirt and frantically looked around. Picking the direction where the swarm seemed lightest, Renji started blindly stumbling in that direction.

Renji had to keep moving, never taking more than a moment to plan the next step, or else he would sink into the muck again until it trapped him and held him immobile. If that happened, he knew he would die the most unpleasant death imaginable.

Hidden roots in the water tried to trip up his feet, and patches of undergrowth were so thick that Renji was forced to flee in a winding pattern around them.

The slime from Renji’s jump into the ooze clung thick and heavy. It weighed him down and enflamed the bites covering his skin, but at the same time it seemed to thwart the worst of the biting insects. He was afraid to imagine what the skin beneath must look like; his Inuzuri rags had offered little in the way of protection.

For long minutes, Renji’s mind was fully occupied with getting away as far and as fast as possible. He lost all sense of time, and his mind drifted as he began to move on pure instinct. The pain of the cracked rib slowly eased, and the bruises and bites that covered his body faded in a dreamlike haze. It may have lasted for days, or weeks, or even months. The sun in this place did not seem to move, so the light never changed, and Renji never seemed to grow hungry or thirsty. He had no internal sense of time and no external way to track it.

Gradually, Renji’s mind began to resurface. The insects had fallen behind. Soon, not even a lone mosquito could be heard nearby, and Renji collapsed, heedless of the reeking slime, and took a moment’s rest.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Renji called out to the trees around him. It was not a question.

He sensed the beast was still around, and he knew his demand needed no clarification.

Instead of the deep voice of the baboon, the cruel hissing of the snake rang out around him, “Weak! Pathetic! You started to give in, to wallow in your misery. You stopped moving forward.” The creature suddenly materialized in front of Renji, looming over him. “If you ever wallow in self-pity, you deserve to be devoured by the swarm.” Renji was treated to the baboon’s huge yellow fangs bared inches from his face – wet and gleaming in the dim light. The snake continued, “No, if you are ever this pathetic again, we will devour you ourselves, you wretched child.”

The baboon roared to punctuate this statement, its breath even fouler than the stink of the swamp around them.

Renji bared his teeth right back at the baboon. “Are you saying I’m going to be stuck here forever?”

“Your stupidity will be your downfall, Renji,” the snake hissed - as if that was any kind of answer.

The beast vanished into the gloom once again.

With effort, Renji pulled himself out of the muck and looked around. Was he imagining things, or was the dim swamp a bit brighter than before? Renji automatically took a few steps to avoid being trapped in the slime. Was the ooze slightly less heavy, less viscous? Wait... one thing was certain - the water was shallower. When he arrived, Renji had been wading through water and slime deep enough to cover his knees. Now, the stuff barely reached the top of his shins. Was it possible that he was actually getting somewhere? Renji looked ahead, and caught a glimpse of something through the foliage that had him scrambling for the nearest climbable tree. Renji pulled himself up the winding trunk, and soon he broke through the canopy.

There.

A mountain rose out of the mist. It looked... clean somehow, wholesome - not like this festering swamp. Renji felt a rush of relief, and leapt back into the ooze with a splash, forging ahead with renewed energy.

Having a goal and a faint hope of escape lightened Renji’s heart considerably, and his hatred of the beast in the shadows diminished a great deal.

“So, I guess this must be the ‘inner world’ the zanpakuto sensei kept talking about.” The creature didn’t reply, but it was the only company Renji had, and he didn’t really mind. “Of course the place is a total dump. I just can’t catch a break, can I? The inside of my soul is rotting stuff, stinking slime, and bugs. Figures. Earlier you said something about my power being tied to misfortune? Well, I believe you. I’d be nuts not to. Story of my life.” He walked in silence for a while. Now that he was paying attention, Renji could see the terrain changing noticeably. The slime dropped to ankle-height, then to cover the tops of his feet, and finally it was a thin film that squished up through his bare toes. Renji was amazed by how easy it was to move. He had nearly forgotten what it was like to walk on dry ground.

The powerful hum of the insect swarm vanished completely.

The upward slope gradually steepened. The trees changed from cypress and tangled mangroves to towering hardwoods. The loam was soft, but blessedly dry.

Renji stopped and flopped onto his back with a grateful sigh. As his mind drifted, Renji nearly dozed off before a thought jerked him back awake.

“Hey, how long have I been here anyway?” he asked the air, “And what’s happening to my body on the outside?”

The baboon’s deep rumble echoed eerily through the air, seeming to come from all directions. “Time passes differently in this place. Only a single week has passed in the outer world.”

“...the fuck? How did I not die by now?”

“There is no need to concern yourself. I have kept your body alive in Inuzuri.”

If that statement was supposed to reassure Renji, it had the opposite effect, “I don’t remember giving you permission to use my body. Let me out of here!”

Silence.

“Are you listening to me you brain-damaged monkey? I said LET ME OUT!”

There was a flicker on one side of the clearing, and Renji lunged.

Nothing. But he was close, he had to be. Hell only knew what the creature had been doing with his body while he was trapped in the swamp, and Renji was desperate to get out of here. Every time he caught a movement on the edge of his vision, Renji took off after it. He soon realized that he was being deliberately led, and just hoped it was to an exit. To Renji’s surprise, the chase ended in a small clearing. The beast stood in the center, towering over a small pool of water in a stone basin.

“Look.”

Now the damn thing was barking orders at him? Despite his annoyance, Renji’s curiosity got the better of him and he approached the basin, leaned over, stared into the water.

Renji saw himself.

It was not his reflection. The Renji in the water was moving through the dusty streets of Rukongai. As he watched, the image grew, becoming impossibly detailed, filling his vision until Renji felt like he was there, floating through the streets.

The other Renji continued, uninterrupted, through the Rukongai slums.

He looked like shit.

Well, sort of. He had to admit the image-Renji looked healthy... impossibly, he looked even stronger than when he left academy for the summer. And… was his image _taller_? Ah, crap. Renji badly stood out already; towering head and shoulders above everyone else was just unnecessary.

His body’s apparent health was the only good thing to say about the scene.

The Renji in the vision wore hakama so tattered and bedraggled it barely maintained his modesty.  The rest of his body was bare, and his hair was longer than ever, a wild snarl matted over his shoulders. The expression on the other Renji’s face was simply... inhuman.

“Stop it!” Renji shouted to the creature controlling him. “Let me out, this is wrong!”

There was no reply, and Renji watched helplessly as frail, huddled figures scattered as the image stalked through the dusty streets. It walked into a building, seemingly chosen at random, and Renji made a small, horrified sound as he saw a woman standing over a cutting board next to a bubbling pot. The image simply walked up and grabbed a sack of rice as if it belonged to him - as if he didn’t notice the knife in the woman’s hand, the knife she had been using to chop vegetables. Renji shouted a warning as the woman in the basin lunged at Renji’s image, “Let go of my food, you red-haired ape!” and Renji stared in shock as the knife broke against the image-Renji’s skin.

The knife broke against his skin.

…What?

Renji shouted again as the image used one hand to pick the woman up by her throat, pinning her against the wall and baring its teeth in her face. The woman’s pupils shrank to pinpoints and she sobbed in terror. Trapped in his mind, Renji was roaring for the image to let her go, and at the beast to let _him_ go, back to his body. The image-Renji dropped the woman and carried out the sack of rice, never looking back.

Residents of the Rukongai slums were tough, and the woman rallied quickly. Renji could faintly hear her screaming after his image, “…Barbarian! …Savage! …Brute! …Animal! …Beast! …Monster! …Demon!”

Renji closed his eyes and tried to sense what was trapping him here, tried to figure out how to fight the beast and regain control of his body.

Suddenly, his movements were just as trapped as his will, and Renji opened his eyes on the mountain to see the creature looming over him, pinning Renji to the ground with one hand. He struggled, but the beast held him down without effort.

“Weak.” the snake hissed.

“You really _are_ a demon, aren’t you?” Renji choked out around the weight crushing him into the loam.

“...So weak,” the snake continued.

“We are a reflection of your demon soul,” the baboon’s rumbling voice revealed no trace of emotion.

“...We will make you strong.”

The creature dissipated into a black cloud, and vanished.

Renji leapt to his feet and took off up the mountain. He didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he had to get out of this world. The slope steepened, and the loose gravel at his feet often caused him to backslide, losing hard-won ground.  As he climbed further, Renji spotted a small structure at the mountain’s peak.

It seemed as good a goal as any. Renji glanced behind him. The stinking swamp below had shrunk to a featureless expanse of green, stretching to the horizon. There was nothing for him there. Renji turned, and climbed on.

By now, the rocks were treacherous and the slope was so steep that Renji was unable to stand upright unassisted. Weathered stone crumbled under Renji’s grip and broke beneath his weight, clattering off the slope and then crashing far below.  It was a miracle he did not fall. He was so focused on finding secure hand and footholds that once again he lost all track of time, and even stopped cursing the beast who had killed his friends and now held him prisoner. The next thing Renji realized, he was at the mountain peak, the building directly in front of him.

Renji felt a sudden and inexplicable dread. Something terrible was waiting for him on the other side of that sliding door. Whatever it was, it was giving him a serious case of the creeps. Goosebumps swept over his skin and he couldn’t suppress a shiver.

He was not ready to find out.

Renji walked around the building, telling himself that he was inspecting it for clues about what was inside. There was nothing remarkable, save the quality of the materials.

Renji knew ‘fancy’ when he saw it. The graceful lines of the paper walls and the tiered roof were complemented by the gleaming wood and well-swept grounds.

Nobody in Inuzuri ever had sliding doors or rice-paper walls. Inuzuri residents hung tattered blankets over wooden doorways.

Renji felt oddly embarrassed that the inside of his soul seemed to like pointless symbols of wealth. He would bet the floors inside were fresh tatami. Before Academy, Renji had never stood on anything but dirt.

Inspection complete, Renji returned to the entrance, and stared. Somewhere nearby, a thrush cried out.

Renji stared at the ricepaper door. Long moments passed.

“I’m not stalling, I’m trusting my instincts,” he said to the air. Where had the beast gone, anyway? That way he could at least pretend he was talking to someone else.

Renji had never considered himself a coward. He was used to risking his life on a daily basis. Being forced to steal food meant endless games of high-stakes tag. Not remotely a coward. Nope.

Renji fidgeted uselessly. Once again, the call of a thrush echoed through the clearing.

He needed to go inside. He wasn’t even fooling himself at this point.

Renji mustered his courage, braced himself, and – hoping nothing would call his bluff - aggressively stormed through the door.

Two steps inside, Renji’s bluff shattered around him and he stared like an idiot.

Renji thought he’d been ready for anything. He had imagined everything from an army of enemies to a swirling black void, but he had not prepared for this.

-.-.-

It was ordinary.

The inside of the building was simple and boring. There was one huge room that greatly resembled the training halls of the Academy.

Wooden floor. Wooden walls. High ceilings. Empty.

_Almost_ empty.

Something hung on the far wall directly opposite the door, the highest place of prominence. It was some kind of weapon.

Renji approached it warily.

It almost looked like a sword, but Renji could see strange joints in the blade, and knew that it was something else. It was serrated, razor sharp. Wicked hooks jutted from the ends of each blade section. Renji could tell by the aura around it that this was the thing that had kept him from entering the building.

It was… evil.

That was the best way to describe it. Evil… and thrilling. The closer he got, the more the weapon seemed to scream in its thirst for blood. It would feed on the pain of its enemies, tear them to shreds with a savage glee. Merciless and cruel. Should Renji try to wield this... sword, it would _turn on him_ if too much time passed since the sword could devour an enemy.

 “You have got to be kidding me,” Renji said to the air. “There's no fuckin’ way.”

“You deny yourself,” the baboon rumbled directly behind him, making Renji jump. He still wasn’t used to the beast’s tendency to appear out of nowhere.

“Coward!” the snake snapped, “Fool! You deny the shape of your soul!”

Renji was losing his patience, “Listen, pal, I think you got sorted to the wrong guy, cuz this ain’t me.”

“Pathetic,” both voices said at once. Renji decided he’d had enough of this thing, and spun, combining his own strength with the momentum into a powerful backhand. It was more of a brawling move than an official hakuda, but the beast was huge, and Renji needed all the power he could generate if he wanted to damage this thing.

His fist met only air. Renji found it absurdly easy to follow his momentum back into a ready stance. The dojo was nothing like a prison cell or a trash-littered Inuzuri alley, and Renji spared a moment of annoyance at the foolishness of students training in such a hall. Hakuda learned in places like this would be useless in a real fight.

“He tries to fight us!” Renji couldn’t be sure, but he thought the snake was laughing at him.

“You are unworthy to wield us, boy.” The baboon bared its fangs at Renji once again. “You’ve called yourself a stray dog for so long that you’ve become one.”

“Disappointing,” the snake whispered again. “We are forced to endure a wretch like you. Better that you die and we find a wielder with the will to fight.”

Renji had some idea what he was supposed to do, and by now he was angry enough to do it. Renji leapt to pull the serrated weapon free, intending to rebound off the wall and tear into the beast.

When the blade was in his hands, everything stopped.

He stopped moving midair, the creature was completely still on the floor. The breeze on the mountaintop vanished.

The only thing Renji could hear was the pounding of his heart, as the blade dissolved in his hands, and the world around him dissolved with it.

 

* * *

 

Part 2 will be posted later this week.


	2. Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey across the glacier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Junko for cheerleading!  
> As always, notes at my livejournal (squizbee).

-.-.-

_When the blade was in his hands, everything stopped._

_He stopped moving midair, the creature was completely still on the floor. The breeze on the mountaintop vanished._

_The only thing Renji could hear was the pounding of his heart, as the blade dissolved in his hands, and the world around him dissolved with it._

-.-.-

Chapter 2: Ice

-.-.-

Renji was cold.

The blackness receded. Renji opened his eyes, and immediately shut them again, blinded by the dazzling white of the landscape.

"The weapon wasn't the way out? You have got to be shitting me." He was talking to the air again. Isolation clearly didn't suit him. Renji arranged himself to sit with his legs crossed, making sure each foot rested on the fabric of the opposite pant leg. That way, his bare feet would stay off the ice.

Ice.

The first and most obvious thing about Renji's new situation was the blinding white. The hard-packed snow was solid beneath him, a substance on the border between snow and ice. The blinding white was from the cold, but unnaturally bright sun reflecting off the pristine landscape. Renji couldn't even look beyond his lap without his eyes watering. He couldn't help noticing that he was wearing his Academy Uniform. In the swamp, he had been wearing the rags of Inuzuri.

Huh.

His breath swirled in front of him like smoke, and Renji felt a stinging sensation as the lining of his nose began to freeze. Inuzuri had never gotten _this_ cold. Where had something like this come from?

"Well this blows," Renji said aloud.

A scraping sound behind him told Renji that the creature was here. He did not leap to his feet and attack, mostly because he would be fighting barefoot and blind, and if the beast meant him harm, an enormous fist would have clubbed Renji over the head by now.

"Nice place you got here," his words dripped with sarcasm.

"Us?" the snake's voice rang out, strangely dampened by the landscape. "You think _we_ would create a place like this? Hurry up and die, you worthless brat!"

"The landscape of your soul is savage and cruel," the baboon spoke behind him, "It is a place of extremes, sharply divided."

"Fantastic," Renji deadpanned, "If this is my soul, then why the hell can't I get out?"

"Your instincts are more trustworthy than your mind. Somewhere inside, you know that you must not leave. Not yet."

Had a monkey-snake just insulted his intelligence? Renji was truly sick of the beast, and decided he would stop talking to it. It would be more productive to spend his time figuring out what he needed, and how to get it.

After a moment, Renji decided that first he needed to get his vision back, so he could see what resources were at hand. Second, he needed to be able to move, to get those resources. Third, he needed heat, because it was fucking cold. Last, he needed a plan, because sitting here was pointless and his ass was going numb and starting to stick to the ice.

Renji pulled off his blue-and-white Academy jacket, and with some effort, tore off the sleeves. The _osode_ sleeves were large enough that he could twist the fabric to wrap twice around each foot, leaving a strange-looking bunch on the top - not that he cared what it looked like. Renji tore narrow strips off the bottom of the jacket to wind around his feet and keep the makeshift shoes securely in place. Renji's practiced movements tying the rags around his feet spoke of the long years in Inuzuri. Nobody had shoes in the slums of outer Rukongai, but that did not make the winters any less harsh.

The wind began to pick up, mercilessly blowing across Renji's bare skin and making him shiver.

He tore one, much wider strip from the bottom of his jacket, and then put the now much smaller jacket back on. It was more of a vest at this point, but Renji needed any insulation he could get. He wrapped the last length of cloth around his face and head, leaving a tiny sliver to see through.

In order to block the glare, the gap had to be so small that it closed and opened with the slightest movement. When open, Renji could see a tiny slice of the world through the gap, and he turned around slowly to see what resources were around.

Nothing.

He was on a featureless glacier stretching in all directions; blinding bright and bitter cold. The wind was blowing harder, driving invisible needle-like shards of ice through his inadequate clothing.

There was no shelter here, and no fuel to be burned. Renji scanned around again, this time focusing on the horizon.

There! A lone mountain rose in the distance, providing the only feature on the landscape.

The wind was steadily building, and before Renji realized it, it had grown to a howling roar

"Let me guess. If I stop moving forward, the blizzard will get me?"

Ah, hell. The silent treatment had lasted a whole five minutes. Before the beast could answer, Renji stalked past it and headed toward the distant mountain.

In some ways, this journey was worse than the swamp. There were no bugs and no stinking slime, but at this point Renji would welcome a foul smell, since it would mean his nose was still functioning. This featureless field of white contained no obstacles to maneuver through, and the landscape provided nothing to hold Renji's attention and occupy his mind. The cold, the ice drew his thoughts to the worst possible topic: Rukia.

There had been only hours between Rukia leaving and Renji finding himself in the swamp. He'd had no time to grieve, no time to mourn, no time to heal.

He'd had no time to lick his wounds like the dog he was.

Rukia.

She had been 'one of the boys' when they were kids, and she'd never lost her boyish figure, which frustrated Rukia but which Renji secretly loved. He'd told her to be glad she wasn't a boy. She didn't have to deal with a squeaky voice and unwanted hair on her face. When water was too scarce for washing, Renji and the other older boys stank, while Rukia would just smell kind of cute, like she was trying to get B.O. and just couldn't quite manage it.

She may have talked like a boy, and she never developed most of the curves that women were known for, but in some ways, Rukia seemed so different, so much better than the rest of them. She saw fleeting scraps of beauty in the Inuzuri filth and violence. She wore rags like she was royalty. She had principles she nearly always honored. The rare times she failed to live up to those principles only made him love her more.

Renji was the only person alive who had seen her break her code of honor. The summer had been particularly harsh. The drought and the sewage pumped from Seireitei made the river so toxic that even animals sickened and died when they drank the foul sludge. They were all desperate, and the older children had divided what they had left into a week's worth of starvation rations.

Mad with hunger and thirst, Rukia had broken into their emergency rations and gone through the entire week's worth of water meant for everyone, and followed by eating their last scraps of food. It had been Renji's turn to guard the stash, but he feigned sleep when he felt her approach, she didn't notice him peeking out under his eyelashes, and afterward she left without a word, letting Renji face the wrath of the other children.

That evening, Renji limped over to sit next to her as she stared miserably at the horizon. Rukia gently touched the bruises swelling on his face, her eyes tracing the trails of blood, and he watched out of his good eye as one tear slid down her cheek.

They never spoke of it, but Rukia must have guessed that Renji knew, and that he had let her do it. What he never told her was that he loved her intensely in that selfish moment. It showed Renji that she was not perfect. Rukia had shown him that she was not a saint, not an angel. She was just like them, and the sacrifices she made came at a great cost to herself, yet she made those sacrifices anyway. Renji was no poet, and did not have the words to tell her how much that meant. They strove to be better because of her example. She kept them from falling into violence and cruelty.

Back on the glacier, the makeshift scarf had given Renji back his vision, but failed to protect him from the cold. Renji had gone from shooting pains to complete numbness in his ears. The tip of his nose had lost all sensation, and everything between his nose and lungs felt raw and damaged. The movement of his mouth was slow and clumsy, his lips not quite doing what they were told. A bone-deep ache had settled into the rest of his body. Renji glanced to his left and eyed the beast's fur. It looked warm, and if he had any way of doing it, he would have killed the baboon, skinned it, and worn its fur wrapped around him while it was still warm and bloody. Renji's feet were shooting pain up his legs with every step. There was no way this was good, but it couldn't be helped. He had to go on. It was either that or die.

Renji's mind drifted back to Rukia, this time focusing on physical things. He was in too much pain to be annoyed with himself for being a shallow horndog.

Renji drifted in contemplation of the cupid-bow shape of Rukia's mouth, fantasized about running his tongue up the line of muscle on the back of her thigh. The tiny hairs on the small of her back made her shiver if he rubbed them the wrong way. Her knees and toes were absurdly ticklish. He remembered her callused feet curling and uncurling against his back, her body shuddering and slick with sweat. He remembered Rukia aggressive and demanding, remembered her begging and needy, remembered her baring her neck in a subtle submission to his will. He would have her any way she let him, just as long as she allowed him to touch her. The things they did in the privacy of darkness were some of his most intense memories, and here on the cold glacier, Renji spent entirely too much time reliving them.

The wind was no longer driving ice shards into him, but by now the only way Renji could tell that it had died down was by the fogging of his breath. His skin had lost the sensation of anything but pain. Renji's feet had gone completely numb. His arms were faring somewhat better, tightly crossed over his chest with his hands tucked into his armpits, but his feet only had two flimsy layers of cloth against the ice and the cold air. His uniform top, which he had mangled to make the shoes and scarf, now barely qualified as a vest. Renji always generated plenty of heat, but he had never overwhelmed his limits like this.

He was going to lose pieces of his body to frostbite.

For a moment, Renji warmed himself with a searing hatred of the beast that traveled several paces to his left. The baboon's fur must be warm, even if its hands and feet looked even less protected than Renji's. The beast's furless hands and feet had turned blue and showed the beginnings of hardened black blisters. The ape's head hung low, and the snake lay on the baboon's back as if dead.

Good fucking riddance.

Frostbite in his soul world was just as painful as the real world, but hopefully the physical damage here would not transfer over to his real body.

It couldn't be helped.

Renji forcibly changed his thoughts to less grim things.

Rukia.

_Damn_ she was a fine woman. Too good for him. He loved her intensely. All the boys did, at some point. Renji was not ashamed to admit it. Renji was certain he didn't deserve something as good as her, and the Kuchiki family had proven him right by taking her away.

Damn it.

Maybe it would have been better for them to remain stray dogs.

Rukia would be a toy of the nobility, performing tricks to please her masters.

Renji was being trained to fight in the pits.

Was this really their fate?

At least they would be fed. That was something.

Renji's skin was completely numb now, and he was having so much trouble concentrating that he almost missed the steam.

-.-.-

At first, Renji thought one side of his vision was fogging over, his eyes slowly losing the ability to function. Blinking rapidly to clear his eyes did not work, and Renji interrupted his death march to glance to the side.

Smoke.

What?

No, the color was too light for smoke. It was steam.

Renji immediately switched direction and headed for the pale wisps. Soon, he came upon the source.

Renji nearly wept with relief. For a moment the blurriness in his eyes had nothing to do with the steam or the fog of his breath. He barely managed to stop himself from jumping in fully clothed. In his rush to get into the hot spring, Renji's stiff, clumsy fingers dropped his clothing into a messy pile.

"Don't do it, Renji," the snake rasped, apparently alive after all, "Don't give in."

"Beware," the baboon added.

"Ah, blow it out yer ass," was Renji's courteous reply. Did the beast want him to lose parts to frostbite?

Clothing removed, Renji slid into the near-scalding water with a groan of pure anticipation. Warmth. At last.

The beast, head bowed in a picture of utter misery, stepped into the hot water behind him.

"What the hell? You just told me not to go in here! You just want to hog this place to yourself or somethin?" Renji asked the creature.

The beast's yellow eyes focused on Renji in a way that seemed significant, but he couldn't read the beast's inhuman expression. Was that… Fury? Pity? Fear? Renji decided he really didn't care.

The pain of frostbitten flesh coming back to life occupied Renji's mind for the next few hours. His limbs went from numb, to shooting pain, to feeling like his flesh was on fire, horribly hot. Renji clenched his teeth and breathed rapidly through his nose to keep from screaming. His ears were burning off, and Renji's legs and feet felt like he was being boiled alive in his own skin.

It was _wonderful_.

Renji was alive, and he was _warm_.

Well, now what?

Oh shit.

The glaringly obvious drawback suddenly became horribly clear. Renji had done something really stupid, even for him.

"The storm approaches." The baboon seemed fond of stating the obvious.

And they were both drenched with water. They couldn't stay here, so Renji was going to have to tough it out.

The heat of the water lasted only moments in the icy wind. Renji was already shaking as he pulled on his inadequate clothing. The baboon emerged and shook out its fur, head bowed in misery. Once again Renji took off toward the mountain, the beast at his side.

It was worse than he could have imagined. His limbs went numb almost immediately. His hair froze to his scalp and frost gathered on his eyelashes. In minutes, he began shivering so violently he could barely stay on his feet.

Less than an hour later, Renji struggled to make his numb lips form words, "Th-this is even worse than if I hadn't jumped into the sp-spring at all,"

The creature looked just as cold as Renji, but its voice was steady and strong, "You are not meant to take the easy path. Trying to do so will only lead to greater suffering."

"Now ya t-tell me."

They limped on for a few more minutes. The baboon's fur had frozen into icy chunks. Its hands and feet looked like they were frozen completely.

A sudden thought struck Renji, "Hey. Wh-what happens… if I die here?"

"I do not know. I have never known a soul world so treacherous."

Renji, unable to feel his feet, tripped on a small irregularity in the surface of the glacier and stumbled to his knees. He was shaking so hard that no matter how hard he tried, he could not regain his feet. The jerking movements of his arms and legs combined with sudden and random moments of weakness made it impossible to catch his balance.

Was he really going to die here?

Then, one of Renji's aborted movements hit a solid mass. Renji looked up to see the creature beside him. His increasingly confused mind insisted that now that it was this close, the beast was… magnificent. Even half-frozen, it was both strong and graceful.

Renji had lost the ability to grip, but the beast ducked under the crook of Renji's elbow, and he used the creature's solid mass to lever himself to his feet. Renji did not think to remove his arm, and he continued to stumble on with his arm slung over the beast's neck. The mountain was close now, so close.

"Why... why did you get in the sp-spring if ya knew this w-would happen?"

The baboon raised its head, its yellow eyes distant, "We are one soul. Whatever you experience, Renji, I will experience with you. I am beside you in everything, through every trial."

Renji would have stopped in his tracks if he didn't know that stopping would mean he'd never be able to start moving again. Each step took enormous concentration, each step an ever-greater struggle of will.

How was it possible that Renji felt guilty for causing suffering to this murderous beast, this demon?

…The demon he was now leaning on. The demon whose bare hands and feet were frozen. The murderous beast who had followed him into the hot spring during Renji's moment of weakness.

The ice abruptly ended at the foot of the mountain. It was in sight. It was almost in reach.

Renji's body had stopped its jerky shivering. His elbow was locked in place over the beast's neck. Each shuffling footstep took so much willpower that Renji started to wonder if it was worth the effort. His mind spun away in a confusing trail of fragmented thoughts.

Rukia…

"No!" Renji had to stay focused. He would not give up. Sleepiness dragged at his eyelids. He focused on the muscles he was moving, putting each foot in front of the other, and then shifting his weight forward, he had to trust the creature beside him to keep his balance.

The line of bare dirt at the foot of the mountain was drawing closer.

"We're almost there." Renji didn't even know who he was talking to. The words were slurred so badly that he was barely understandable.

A hundred meters away. Fifty. Ten.

One.

Renji tentatively set one foot over the line of earth, shifted his weight forward one last time, and collapsed to his knees.

The sheets of ice flaked away from Renji's hair and clothing, vanishing before they even hit the ground. A warm tingling spread through his body as the dead parts of him came back to life. This wasn't the slow, painful recovery from frostbite, this was true relief.

Renji carefully got to his feet. His body was as good as new, even if his mind still felt weak with exhaustion and shock. Renji could have wept and kissed the warm ground. He rose back to his feet and took one step, then another. His legs felt strong and steady. A few more steps. Soon, Renji was running up the mountainside. He felt exhilarated enough to laugh. The creature had taken to the trees above him, easily keeping up.

Then the slope ended, and they were at the mountain's peak.

There was the fancy building.

Renji felt oddly nostalgic seeing the structure again. He couldn't help a grin as he caught his breath.

There was a dull thump as the beast landed heavily beside him.

Renji's grin slipped away. There was something he had to do.

"Thank you," he turned to the beast and spoke directly to it. "Thank you, I could not have made it on my own." The beast's yellow eyes were unreadable. "And… I'm sorry." Renji wasn't sure what he was apologizing for. He was definitely apologizing for being a dumbass, for leading the beast into the hot spring, but something inside Renji told him he should apologize for blaming the children's deaths on the creature as well. Renji wasn't sure if he was ready to do that.

The same powerful, borderline-evil aura hovered about the building, but this time Renji was not so wary. He would go inside and claim the weapon as his own. It was a part of him, after all.

The beast dissolved into a black mist, and Renji sighed and turned around, intending to enjoy one last view of his inner world.

The moment he saw the landscape, Renji's jaw dropped.

This was the first time he had really looked outward from the mountain peak. His head whipped from side to side, then he ran to the other side of the building and did the same thing again.

"What the…?"

The mountain peak gave Renji a full view of the landscape in all directions.

It was perfectly divided.

The landscape beyond the mountain was neatly separated into four quarters, each swath stretching into the distance. One of them was green. Another was white. A third was blue, and the last one was tan.

"The hell?" he said again, just for emphasis.

The section that had been directly behind him was white, so it must be the glacier. That would mean that the green section was the swamp. So what the hell were the blue and tan ones? Renji didn't really care to find out. Still, what kind of fucked up soul-world was this anyway?

The beast had vanished again, but Renji could still hear its voice in his mind, something the creature had said…

"The landscape of your soul is savage and cruel … a place of extremes, sharply divided."

"Wow, he wasn't kidding." Renji was speaking to the air again. It was about time he claimed the sword and got out of this place.

Renji strode up to the building, with much less trepidation this time. He was still slightly unnerved by the fancy building, half-expecting someone to storm out and demand he get off their property, but at least he wasn't panicking.

Renji slid open the shoji door and stepped inside. He walked across the gleaming wooden floor and looked at the weapon on the wall. Once again, he sensed the creature appear behind him.

"Well, I guess this is me, and I'm just gonna have to accept it," he stepped forward. "Let's paint the town red, shall we? We'll tear up the city and lay waste to the countryside." Renji heard the beast chuckle darkly behind him, and Renji knew his own grin must be more than slightly evil as his hand closed on the hilt and he lifted the weapon off the wall.

Everything stopped. The world went still, and slowly faded away.

-.-.-

Renji opened his eyes, only to close them immediately. It was painfully bright out here. Déjà vu. At least he wasn't cold. In fact, Renji felt like he was roasting to death.

He sat up, and slowly squinted his eyes open just a crack.

Sand dunes as far as the eye could see, the land blazing bright and scorching hot. Sand dunes a suspiciously familiar shade of tan... and a lone mountain far in the distance.

"Oh _fuck me_!"


	3. Sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the freezer and into the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last time, thanks to Junko for cheerleading!  
> Also, some of the world-building didn't make it into the story, but I rambled about it in my livejournal (username squizbee)

 

Renji opened his eyes, only to close them immediately. It was painfully bright out here. Déjà vu. At least he wasn’t cold. In fact, Renji felt like he was roasting to death.

He sat up, and slowly squinted his eyes open just a crack.

Sand dunes as far as the eye could see, the land blazing bright and scorching hot. Sand dunes a suspiciously familiar shade of tan... and a lone mountain far in the distance.

“Oh _fuck me_!”

 

-.-.-

 

Having a temper tantrum would be the opposite of useful right now, tempting as it was. Renji pulled himself to his feet. The air was cooler up here, or at least less oppressive. Renji could see shimmering heat rising several inches above the sand. It was a damn good thing he was wearing shoes this time.

And, apparently, the rest of the shinigami uniform as well.

The black fabric wasn’t helping with the heat, soaking up the sun the way it was. Renji shrugged out of the sleeves of the shihakusho, letting the fabric hang from his waist, and began walking toward the distant mountain. The beast followed him silently, and this time Renji did pity the creature’s thick fur and unprotected hands and feet. 

The sun beat down mercilessly. The only scent in the dry air was scorched earth and sunbaked dust.  No sound but the crunch of sand underfoot. In less than an hour, Renji decided that going topless had been a bad idea. His torso was pouring sweat. For the first time since entering this world, he was thirsty, and the sun was making him delirious. Even though he was relatively tanned, any more sun would almost certainly burn Renji’s skin. Up until now, his inner world hadn’t hesitated to try and kill him, so he likely wasn’t immune to sunburn.

He needed shade.

Ah, crud. There was no shade anywhere. Just endless sand dunes shimmering with heat haze. No shade, no shelter, no water. It was so bright that Renji was starting to see black spots in his vision.

This sucked.

“So, what happens if I stop moving forward this time?”

The creature answered, “The sandstorm will flay the flesh from your bones.” Even though the beast didn’t seem to need its mouth to talk, its voice contained a dry raspiness that betrayed its thirst.

Renji didn’t need reminding of his own thirst, but he pushed it away. It couldn’t be helped.

Now about that sun…

Renji pulled the shihakusho out of his hakama. He separated the white inner layer, decided against anything fancy, and simply draped it over his head and shoulders. That left the black outer layer. In minutes he had torn another strip and wrapped it around his head much like he had on the glacier to prevent him from going sun-blind. What of the rest of it?

Well…

“Hey, do you need something between your feet and the sand?” Renji glanced at the baboon’s raw and blistered extremities. That stuff’s gotta chafe bare skin, he winced in sympathy.

“It would make this journey less painful,” was the beast’s reply.

“Alright, hang on.” In the next few minutes Renji tore the fabric into four large squares and four long strips, carefully getting as much sand as possible off each of the creature’s limbs before tying the fabric into the same crude protection he’d used for his feet on the glacier. He stepped back.

If possible, rag-boots looked even stupider on the creature than they did on Renji, but again, there was no helping it. Renji adjusted his crude sunblind, resettled the white undershirt over his head and shoulders, and continued walking.

Renji was no stranger to thirst. He had grown up in Inuzuri after all, but it never got any less terrible. His mouth was bone-dry. If he could piss, he’d be tempted to drink _that_. But he couldn’t, so it wouldn’t be an issue.

The gap Renji had left open to see through kept closing and blocking his vision, causing him to stumble on the shifting dunes. Dust and grit from the blowing sand found its way into Renji’s eyes, and his dehydrated body couldn’t produce the tears to wash them out, leaving him in a world of blurriness and pain.

Renji swore that as soon as possible he would buy a decent pair of sunglasses. It seemed like the best way to apologize to his abused eyes. Or perhaps goggles...

Renji’s tongue felt swollen. His lips had split open, but his blood had become so thick that he barely even bled. The unmoving sun made it impossible to tell how long he had been here. In the silence, his scraping footsteps had become a cadence – water, water, water…

Water.

“Hot damn!” Renji’s voice was dry and croaky, but he didn’t care. There, off to his right – Water! A shallow indentation in the distance glittered blue through the heat haze. A surge of relief, and Renji altered direction.

“No… don’t do it… Renji.” The creature’s voice was definitely showing signs of strain.

“Why don’t you go fu-” Renji paused mid-sentence, struck by the familiarity of the situation. “Hang on, is this like the hot springs? What’s wrong with the water?”

The beast sagged in what might have been relief. “There is no water. What you see is a desert mirage. Following it will lead you ever further from the mountain.”

Renji sat down, exhausted. He was dizzy and feeling sick to his empty stomach. “Great, just great,” he grumbled, as despair began to set in. “The mountain is so far off, at this rate we’ll die before we reach it.”

The reply was simple, “Yes.”

Renji wracked his brain, trying to come up with a solution.

“I can’t make it, can I?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to _do_?” Renji nearly roared in frustration. “You seem to know what’s going on, so give me a clue, damn it!”

“I cannot help you find the answer. That is one thing you must realize for yourself.”

In any other circumstances, Renji would have lost his temper and either started shouting, or more likely, attacked the beast. But he had a throbbing headache, and the pounding pain was enough to keep Renji still.

“I don’t want to die.”

The beast was silent.

The heat near the ground was unbearable, so without any other option, Renji rose to his feet and once again began walking toward the mountain.

The headache and dizziness only worsened, and cramps began so seize his muscles. Renji could handle pain. Renji could handle thirst. He kept repeating this to himself, over and over.

Water, water, water, water…

The dizziness became so severe that Renji found himself on his knees in the desert sand. He realized this was a little like on the glacier. “I need your help.”

“Yes,” the beast said simply.

Pause for an extended moment. Two.

Renji suddenly understood. He got it. Revelation.

Renji meant that he needed help keeping his balance, but this was something even simpler. He felt like a colossal idiot that it had taken him this long to get it.

Renji had been relying on his own strength to get through his soul world.

“You can help me.”

“I can.”

They both fell silent. The implied request hung between them.

“Would you help me?”

“I would.”

Silence stretched again. Damn it, the beast was going to make him beg, wasn’t it?

Well, his other option was to die, “Please. Please take me to the mountain.”

The beast dissolved into a black cloud. The mist surrounded Renji, and suddenly he was floating. The sensation lasted nearly a minute before the black mist cleared and Renji was deposited on the mountainside. He began the journey to the now-familiar building.

The thirst was gone. The headache and the sand and the split lips were gone. Renji felt normal again.

Slowing slightly, Renji realized that if the creature had helped him reach the mountain, it might also be able to answer his questions. “Will I be able to leave this time?”

The creature was silent, staring at Renji with unreadable yellow eyes.

Renji sighed. “The only part of this world I haven’t been to is the blue section. I’d like to avoid that, since blue probably means water and the only way I know how to swim is doggy-paddle. What else do I need to do to leave this place?”

“You are nearly there.”

“That’s no kind of answer, you…” Renji realized he didn’t know what to call the thing. He didn’t know what manner of beast it was, where it came from, its history, or anything about it, really. For the second time, Renji decided he was a complete moron.

Renji reached the top of the mountain and strode across the clearing and into the building without hesitation. Several steps inside, he felt the beast reappear behind him.

“On the wall, that’s you, isn’t it?”

The beast made a sound of assent.

“Would you... may I wield you. Will you fight beside me?”

“Yes.”

And with that, Renji felt a tangible shift in the air around him. He sensed that he could take the weapon off the wall and be returned to the outside world. Renji reached for it, but something made him hesitate before his hand wrapped around the hilt.

He turned around again. “I guess we’ll have to learn about each other if we’re gonna work together. And if we’re gonna be working together, I guess we ought to be introduced.” He paused, but felt no disapproval from the creature, “…I’m Renji, will you tell me your name?”

The creature’s expression did not change, but Renji could hear the approval in its voice, “I am Zabimaru.”

Renji bowed in greeting. Without further delay, he turned and reached out. His fingers wrapped around the hilt of the weapon, and the world vanished.

From now on, they would work together. And their objective was to raise hell.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes and tidbits can be found on my livejournal (username squizbee, or find the url in my profile)


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